In order for electronic devices to communicate, a wireless or wired protocol (i.e., standard) may be used to define hardware and software parameters such that the devices are able to send, receive, and interpret data. For example, the 802.11 family of standards is provided by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and describes, among other features, medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications that may be used to implement wireless local area networks (WLANs).
Some wired and wireless protocols define a guard interval (e.g., 0.8 μs) that prefixes transmitted information symbols. The guard interval reduces interference between information symbols by providing time for multi-path reflections of a previously transmitted symbol to attenuate. However, using a fixed guard interval to prefix each information symbol may unnecessarily and undesirably increase data transmission duration implying a reduced data rate. Therefore, devices that implement a plurality of guard interval lengths (e.g., long interval, medium interval, and short interval) and/or selectively switch between implementing a guard interval and not implementing a guard interval are desirable. Additionally, devices that are able to correctly interpret transmitted information symbols prefixed by different guard interval lengths are desirable.